IIA. Related Applications
There are no applications related hereto heretofore filed by these inventors in this or any foreign country.
IIB. Field of Invention
This invention relates to an ancillary tiller for boats powered by steerable outboard motors, and more particularly to such an ancillary tiller that allows selectively adjustable positioning relative to the motor.
IIC. Background and Description of Prior Art
In the use of small boats powered and steered by outboard motors, it is often desirable in general, and especially in the case of fishing activities, for a user to have means of steering the boat from various positions at a distance from the motor. This need has heretofore been recognized and various methods devised to fulfill it. The instant invention provides a new and novel device of this class.
One type of device that has become popular to allowing outboard motors steerage from remote positions has been a typical steering wheel structure that commonly has been positioned in the fore part of a boat at a distance from a rearwardly mounted motor. This class of device is readily distinguishable from an ancillary tiller in that it generally must be installed on and supported by the boat itself rather than merely by the outboard motor, and additionally the steering function may be carried out only from a position in the immediate vicinity of a steering wheel rather than from other variable positions within the boat.
Ancillary tillers or extensions as such have heretofore become known, but in general have provided structures that either are not movable relative to the motor that they control or else if movable, have been movable in one or possibly two perpendicular planes, but not in three mutually perpendicular planes. Such known devices also have often been of a complex and costly structure because they have combined features other than only tillage, especially such to regulate throttle controls on various outboard motors that have a rotary type throttle control associated with a tiller handle.
In contradistinction to this prior art, our invention seeks to provide an ancillary tiller that is used only for that purpose to allow simple and economic manufacture. It provides a compound structure, having a particular universal joint between two rigid arms, that allows universal positioning of the extension within the area limited by its length. The particular universal joint used in the device is of combined ball and socket and axle type that allows universality of motion, but yet provides a structure of substantial strength which may be easily and inexpensively manufactured from plastic by relatively simple molding processes.
Our invention resides not in any one of these features individually, but rather in the synergistic combination of all of the structures of our device that give rise to the functions necessarily flowing therefrom, as herein specified and claimed.